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For Immediate Release
September, 25 2024, 07:16pm EDT
Contact:
press@sanders.senate.gov
Sanders, Cassidy Applaud Senate's Unanimous Approval of Resolution to Hold Dr. Ralph de la Torre in Contempt of Congress
This is the Senate's first passage of a criminal contempt resolution in more than 50 years
Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Ranking Member Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-La.) today released the following joint statement after the United States Senate agreed to hold Steward Health Care CEO Dr. Ralph de la Torre in criminal contempt of Congress. The last time the Senate voted to hold someone in criminal contempt for not complying with a subpoena was in 1971 against a witness subpoenaed to appear before a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee.
This follows the committee’s bipartisan and historic vote last week to issue the contempt resolution – the first time in modern American history that the HELP Committee has taken such action.
“The Committee sought testimony about the financial decisions made by Dr. de la Torre as CEO of Steward Health Care to understand the financial downfall of the company and to inform legislative action to prevent similar events from affecting the patients and communities we represent,” said the senators. “Unfortunately, Dr. de la Torre repeatedly refused to appear before this committee even when compelled by a duly authorized subpoena. If you defy a Congressional subpoena, you will be held accountable. Today, the Senate unanimously approved our resolution to hold Dr. de la Torre in criminal contempt.”
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Pope Francis Urges Genocide Probe of Israel's War on Gaza
The pontiff's call comes as the International Court of Justice is reviewing evidence in a South Africa-led genocide case against Israel.
Nov 17, 2024
In a new book set to be released this week, Pope Francis I endorsed a genocide investigation into Israel's war on Gaza—which has killed or maimed more than 150,000 Palestinians and forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened millions more over the past 13 months.
"In the Middle East, where the open doors of nations like Jordan or Lebanon continue to be a salvation for millions of people fleeing conflicts in the region: I am thinking above all of those who leave Gaza in the midst of the famine that has struck their Palestinian brothers and sisters given the difficulty of getting food and aid into their territory," the pontiff wrote in his latest book, which goes on sale in some countries on November 19.
"According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide," the Pope added. "It should be carefully investigated to determine whether it fits into the technical definition formulated by jurists and international bodies."
The Pope's words echo last week's finding by a United Nations expert panel that Israel's annihilation of Gaza is "consistent with the characteristics of genocide."
The International Court of Justice—a U.N. organ—is currently weighing a South Africa-led genocide case against Israel backed by more than 30 nations and regional blocs as well as hundreds of groups and experts around the world.
Meanwhile, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as three former Hamas leaders assassinated by Israel, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including extermination.
Many jurists, scholars, and other experts—including some of Israel's leading Holocaust historians—have called Israel's policies and actions in Gaza genocide. Early in the war, Raz Segal—an Israeli historian and professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University in New Jersey—called Israel's Gaza onslaught "a textbook case of genocide."
Numerous world leaders and other international officials, artists, entertainers, and others—including half of Democratic voters in the United States surveyed in May—also agree that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Many Palestinian Christians have been killed, injured, or otherwise harmed by Israeli forces during the bombardment, invasion, and siege of Gaza. With just 800 to 1,000 people believed remaining in Gaza, members of the world's oldest Christian community warned early in the war that they were "under threat of extinction."
In their most infamous attack on Gaza Christians, Israeli forces bombed the 12th century Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church, Gaza's oldest, in October 2023, killing 18 Palestinians including numerous children. Among the victims were two women and an infant related to former Republican U.S. Congressman Justin Amash of Michigan.
After an Israeli sniper fatally shot an elderly woman and her daughter on the grounds of a Catholic church in Gaza City last December, Pope Francis condemned what he called an act of "terrorism."
Amid the death and destruction wrought by Israel's assault on Gaza, last December's Christmas celebrations were canceled in Bethlehem, the purported birthplace of Jesus Christ.
"How can we celebrate when we feel this war—this genocide—that is taking place could resume at any moment?" asked Palestinian Lutheran pastor Munther Isaac at the time.
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'A Disastrous Mistake': Trump Taps Fracking CEO Chris Wright for Energy Secretary
"This is going to be the oiliest administration since George W. Bush," lamented one environmental campaigner.
Nov 16, 2024
In a move that alarmed green groups, Republican President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday tapped Chris Wright—the CEO of a fracking company who denies the climate emergency—as his energy secretary.
Wright, who leads the Denver-based oil services company Liberty Energy, is a Republican donor whose nomination to head the Department of Energy is backed by powerful fossil fuel boosters including oil and gas tycoon and Trump adviser Harold Hamm.
"Chris has been a leading technologist and entrepreneur in Energy. He has worked in Nuclear, Solar, Geothermal, and Oil and Gas," Trump said in a statement announcing his choice. "Most significantly, Chris was one of the pioneers who helped launch the American Shale Revolution that fueled American Energy Independence, and transformed the Global Energy Markets and Geopolitics."
"Not surprising but still appalling that Trump's pick for Energy Secretary is a Big Oil CEO."
Trump—who has promised to increase fossil fuel production beyond the record-setting levels of the Biden administration—also said Wright would serve on a new Council of National Energy led by Doug Burgum, his pick to run the Interior Department.
In a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, Wright said that he is "honored and grateful for the opportunity" to be nominated by Trump.
"My dedication to bettering human lives remains steadfast, with a focus on making American energy more affordable, reliable, and secure," he added. "Energy is the lifeblood that makes everything in life possible. Energy matters. I am looking forward to getting to work."
Wright calls himself "a lifelong environmentalist" and said last year that "climate change is a real problem." However, he also said in 2023 that "there is no such thing as clean energy or dirty energy" and that "there is no climate crisis and we're not in the midst of an energy transition either."
While fossil fuel proponents cheered Wright's nomination, climate and environmental defenders voiced alarm over the pick.
"Not surprising but still appalling that Trump's pick for Energy Secretary is a Big Oil CEO," League of Conservation Voters senior vice president for government affairs Tiernan Sittenfeld wrote on X.
Natural Resources Defense Council senior vice president for climate and energy Jackie Wong blasted Wright as "a champion of fossil fuels" whose nomination was "a disastrous mistake."
"The Energy Department should be doing all it can to develop and expand the energy sources of the 21st century, not trying to promote the dirty fuels of the last century," Wong said in a statement reported by The Associated Press. "Given the devastating impacts of climate-fueled disasters, DOE's core mission of researching and promoting cleaner energy solutions is more important now than ever."
Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director at the Center for Biological Diversity, lamented that "this is going to be the oiliest administration since George W. Bush."
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At COP29, Democrat Senators Vow to 'Rise Up' for Climate During 'Dark Days' of Trump 2.0
"Just like climate change won't be solved by any one president, climate action won't be stopped by any one president," Sen. Ed Markey said at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Azerbaijan.
Nov 16, 2024
A pair of Democratic U.S. senators pledged Saturday at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan to keep fighting for climate action during Republican President-elect Donald Trump's second term, while urging President Joe Biden to act decisively against liquefied natural gas exports before the end of his presidency.
Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Ed Markey of Massachusetts spoke at a press conference Saturday following a Friday joint panel discussion at COP29, where they both sounded the alarm over the dangers of Trump 2.0 and offered hope for climate action.
"With Trump and the Republicans taking their turn at the political reins, oil and gas companies will soon have their pick of lackeys to enable their destructive, polluting LNG wish list," said Markey, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Climate, Clean Air, and Nuclear Safety.
"Supercharged natural gas exports will be a new Trump energy tax on American households, costing households billions by sending fossil fuels abroad to the highest bidder," the senator continued. "Big Oil has a business plan—and is only here at COP29 to make their business deals, at the expense of working families in the U.S. and frontline communities around the globe."
"But our climate-focused, people-powered, renewable plan is better, and we're joining forces worldwide to fight for it and reject Big Oil's attempt to put private profits over the public interest—no matter who's president and no matter which cronies are at the controls," Markey added.
As the senator noted during a Friday press call, "Just like climate change won't be solved by any one president, climate action won't be stopped by any one president."
Earlier this week, Markey and Congresswoman Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) introduced the Targeting Environmental and Climate Recklessness Act (TECRA), legislation to "restrict access to the U.S. financial system for those individuals and companies most responsible for exacerbating climate change and deforestation."
Whitehouse said in a statement that "dark days are ahead in Washington as Donald Trump, Republicans, and their fossil fuel handlers abdicate America's leadership on climate just as the scientific and economic warnings of climate chaos grow more clear and grim."
"The world must be clear-eyed about the threat Trump's Republican Party poses to climate safety," the senator added. "At COP, I hope to reassure our foreign counterparts that Democrats will pursue climate progress at every level of government while fighting tooth and nail to expose the Big Oil-fueled corruption descending on D.C."
Markey stressed that "climate change and Donald Trump are both existential threats to our health and to our livable future—but we're not giving up on either front."
"Even if Donald Trump is ready to enact his day-one doomsday agenda and pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement yet again, we will rise up in support of ambitious climate action and climate finance targets—targets that will show that COP stands for Climate Outlasts Presidents," Markey argued.
"We must work together, both at home and in solidarity with lawmakers around the world, in order to delay and derail Trump and the fossil fuel industry's dirty agenda," he added.
The senators and green groups said one way to get a head start on fighting that agenda is for Biden to halt LNG export expansion. Although climate campaigners praised Biden's January pause on approvals for all LNG exports to non-Fair Trade Agreement countries, a Trump-appointed federal judge lifted the pause in July. In September, the Department of Energy granted LNG export approval to the company New Fortress Energy.
Under Biden's watch, the United States became the world's leading LNG exporter.
"While Trump stacks his cabinet with a carnival of corporate cronies, President Biden has just weeks to halt some of the biggest carbon bombs on Earth," Center for Biological Diversity senior climate campaigner Ben Goloff said at Saturday's press conference."
"From the Gulf Coast to Europe and Asia, U.S. LNG expansion is neither needed nor wanted. The Biden administration should urgently complete its review of LNG exports' many harms," Goloff added. "It should reject authorizations for monster polluter [Calcasieu Pass 2] LNG export terminal and other pending projects that fail to meet the public interest test required by law, science, and justice."
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